Dennis Van Milligen has worked in business media for 15 years, the majority of that time spent as the editor in chief of a chemical engineering magazine. Since joining AB in 2013, Dennis helped launch Gameday Security, the official magazine of the the NCS4 focusing on protecting athletic and recreation events. A native of Wheaton, Ill., Dennis is a former All-State long distance runner who now uses whatever speed he has left to leg out doubles in recreational softball leagues. Dennis is a graduate of Lewis University in Romeoville, Ill., and resides in the Chicago suburbs with his wife and two young daughters who are repeatedly told how much Dennis is going to hate every one of their boyfriends.

For far too many college athletic programs, acting in the best interests of the student-athlete is pure fiction. From academic fraud to sexual assaults, colleges and universities have frequently failed their student-athletes by putting their best interests ahead of the student-athlete's. These failures extend beyond what is making national headlines, and can happen at the most unlikely of institutions — in my case, a Catholic university.

Penn State University's football home opener on Sept. 6 provided little in-game drama last year — the Nittany Lions comfortably beat Akron, 21-3 — but plenty of pregame drama. The weather forecast called for potential lightning storms that day, creating a headache for athletic officials concerned about the safety of spectators both in the tailgate areas and Beaver Stadium. In preparation for the coming storm, Penn State shared with the public its evacuation plan, which included designated shelter areas and evacuation routes, to ensure everyone understood instructions in advance.

Death Valley is the intimidating home field of LSU football where, on any given Saturday in the fall, the number of tailgating, non-ticket-holding fans can equal the 100,000+ entering the gates to watch their beloved Tigers. It's a security nightmare that requires meticulous planning, flawless execution, and a little help from your friends in the industry.

The perception surrounding the modern professional football environment is that unruly fan behavior is escalating, forcing families to stay far away from these increasingly unstable atmospheres. Perpetuating that stigma is a steady flow of videos showing fans fighting at football venues across the country. For example, New England Patriots fan Jaclyn Nugent was punched by New York Jets fan Kurt Paschke at MetLife Stadium last fall. A fan videotaped part of the fight, including the infamous punch, on her smartphone and uploaded it to YouTube. Two months later, it had received more than 350,000 views.

Athletic Business is conducting a survey of college recreation managers and leaders to learn more about how you are controlling access to your facilities. Specifically, we want to know what, if any, role biometrics is playing in access control at your facility. Please take a few minutes to answer the following survey questions, and look for a summary in our April issue.

Marc Lovicott, public information officer for the University of Wisconsin, never misses a home football game. But recovering from knee surgery, he was forced to watch from home as the Badgers battled the University of Illinois at Camp Randall Stadium on October 11, 2014. The game made national news, but not for the 38-28 Badgers victory. Rather, it was for what happened between the third and fourth quarters — during the "Jump Around" tradition — when an unmanned aircraft was spotted hovering over the student section.

Ohio State students and fans flooded the streets of Columbus last night after the Buckeyes' historic 42-20 victory over the University of Oregon in the first College Football Playoff Championship. As of this morning, a total of 89 fires had been reportedly set in trash cans and dumpster, prompting police to reportedly use pepper spray and other tactics to manage the escalating situation.

One of the debates that has intrigued me recently involves the increasing amount of coaches that are withdrawing scholarship offers due to a high school recruit exhibiting unacceptable or inappropriate behavior on social media. According to this story we published last week, high school coaches in Georgia are applauding University of Georgia head football coach Mark Richt for dropping a recruit that misbehaved on Twitter.

No one should forget that deadly week in the summer of 2011 when two high school football players and one high school football coach died from heat-related causes. That following summer, in 2012, athletic administrators were feeling a different kind of heat: parents of the two football players who died in 2011, Isaiah Laurencin in Florida and Don'terio J. Searcy in Georgia, sued their respective county boards, asserting that the coaches pushed the boys too hard. Both schools, Miramar (Fla.) High School and Fitzgerald (Ga.) High School, boast prominent football programs. And it's not just the schools and county boards drawing the legislative ire of angry parents.

Editor's note: Look for more Sports Venue Safety articles as we publish a new one online each day this week. Or, view the entire digital issue here.

My first exposures to the issues of safety and security at a sporting event came when I was eight years old. It was at Old Comiskey, back when the Chicago White Sox were "winning ugly" in the American League West. I remember going to at least half a dozen games that year with my father as the White Sox fought for an AL West championship, but that wasn't the only fighting I witnessed. The fights in the stands became as much of a spectacle as the game itself. It got to a point that we never wondered if a fight would break it, but rather when. Though I attended games with my father, a U.S. Navy SEAL and Golden Gloves boxing champion, I never had a complete sense of safety. Still, I was undeterred. I loved going to Old Comiskey and watching the White Sox despite the extracurricular activities.

I had the pleasure to travel down beautifully boring I-65 to Indianapolis last week for the National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security's annual conference, where the superheroes of the sports security world gathered to address the constantly evolving challenge of protecting its venues, athletes and spectators from new and old threats alike. Outside of the Athletic Business Conference & Expo, there is no other conference I look forward to attending more, and this year's show did not disappoint.

Popular AB contributor Chris Yandle, assistant AD for communications at the University of Miami, wrote a great post for our website in May about our collective love/hate relationship with social media.

NCS4 kicked off its annual conference and expo Monday with the formal introduction of its Intercollegiate Athletics Safety and Security Best Practices Guide. The 100-plus page "living" document is the result of collegiate security and safety leaders brainstorming ideas at NCS4's first National Intercollegiate Athletics Safety and Security Summit last January at the University of Southern Mississippi, according to symposium moderator Paul Denton, chief of police at Ohio State University.

Security at this year's FIFA World Cup has been intensely scrutinized, starting months in advance as host country Brazil raced to get its stadiums ready for the 32-team tournament, a topic addressed by AB's Michael Gaio last month. Next came the safety of athletes, coaches and spectators.

Being Father's Day last Sunday, I felt compelled to weigh in on a story that came across our newswire last week where a country board in South Carolina is considering banning volunteer parents from coaching to avoid the perceived "favoritism" that is apparently associated with parents coaching their children. Yes, you read correctly. At a time when we are dealing with a coaching crisis of sorts across the country and should be encouraging parents to be more involved in their child's life, there is a group out there that wants to ban those parents from not only helping their kids, but other kids on that sports team, as well.

It is safe to say that necessity is the mother of reinvention these days in the health club industry. The rise of in-home fitness options and low-priced health clubs are certainly factors in fitness chains reinventing themselves and how they attract/retain members, but for the Midtown Athletic Club, neither played a role in its $1 million renovation this year. Rather, it was an industry trend driving its new approach and layout.

Toward the beginning of 2013, Lockport (N.Y.) High School athletic director Patrick Burke was the recipient of the 2013 Empire State Supervisors and Administrators Association's Administrator of the Year Award. He has been praised by his peers for his work ethic and leadership, and for being a role model at the school he loves and within the community he serves. Toward the end of 2013, Burke found himself the recipient of something entirely different: a beating by two intoxicated students he attempted to confront for unruly behavior at a basketball scrimmage.